Deep In The Night
by Gabi217
Summary: In the dark and silence of the night, he realizes that she was what kept him afloat, always, even when he thought he was losing his mind. Oneshot.


**Deep In The Night**

**by: **_gabrielle_

**Disclaimer: **oh, I love you Jo, I guess I guess I guess you know. (hahaha, j/k). Jo owns HP, I only own the twists of fate.

**A/N: **don't hate. It has no real time setting, but I supposed if one wanted to stick it to a timeline, it'd probably fit best as Ginny 6th and Draco 7th. I found it while sorting through some old ideas and shorties that might end up on here. Don't hate, appreciate. It's slightly OOC and most definitely naïve :D

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He was almost positive that seeing them together made him lose his mind.

He hated the way she touched his shoulder so fondly, the way she let him smooth her hair out of her face when they sat together, so close.

He hated the way she came to dinner red-faced, red-eyed. He never did anything about it, though - what could he do? She thought she hid it so well, but it effected both of them more than either of them wanted to admit.

He remembered her leaving, so fast, on that night. He remembered her being so distraught, losing herself in the dank mazes of stone that created the Slytherin dungeons. He had run after her - hoping, maybe, to apologize - but she had scratched and slapped at his reaching hands. Angrily, he spat words that didn't make any connection to his thoughts at all in her direction and turned on his heel, leaving her there in the middle of the night. Sitting in his room, he stared out the window at the tower he knew she was housed in. He didn't sleep until he saw the lights flicker, the curtains draw closed.

He couldn't forgive himself, but he knew he should. He had told himself what he had told her. There was nothing there.

There was, however, something in his stomach that turned and twisted in white anger when they came through the doors together, all clasped hands and smiles. He didn't deserve her; that four-eyed freak knew nothing of the girl he was so infatuated with. He didn't know her favorite candy, her favorite position to sleep in, her favorite place on a man's body… his fingers curled against the table.

He couldn't bear seeing them in the halls together. With their bodies pressed so close, whispering and smiling. He took points for no reason and ignored her futile attempts at starting an argument. He began to tell himself pining for her wasn't worth his time - he told himself that she was just dirt, and would always be dirt. There was nothing there between them, and there never would be.

It was deep in the night that he wasted away. It was these times when he confessed to himself that he was too cruel to her; it was those nights that broke him, admitting himself to too much.

He wondered, at these times, if she thought about him half as much as his mind obsessed over her. His passive glances became deep stares; his urge to hit Potter in the halls became too much to handle.

Yes, deep in the night, in the dark, he could feel himself losing his mind, in the hallows of his thoughts and the sheets on his bed that would never lose her scent.

His image began to fade as he got quieter, broodier, with dark circles beneath his eyes.

She didn't glow quite so much, either, and things between she and The Boy Who Ruined Everything became forced on her part, all false smiles and fronts. He caught her looking at him more and more through dinner, that same, still blackness to her eyes that he saw every morning. She got skinnier.

They were breaking, slowly, and it took him too long to realize that he kept her soul alive, and she kept him asleep.

They needed it, whatever it was that fed off of the other.

Late in the early ours of morning, he told himself he needed her.

It wasn't planned.

It wasn't simple, either, but that didn't matter.

He didn't care what anyone wanted to say - he didn't give a damn at all. All he wanted was for her to eat and smile and laugh with her eyes again. He wanted to give her life, like she had given him - he wanted to admit to her how he really felt. How he really loved her.

When he saw Potter stand up to kiss her, he knocked the bench backwards. Classmates grabbed the table for support, knocking goblets over, causing a gentle ruckus that brought attention.

She stared at him. He stared back.

Potter drew closer. Her eyes, so dark and blank in that moment, kept him going, shoving past innocent students as he plowed through the crowded room.

A hushed silence fell over them, the only voice daring to echo above it Harry's.

"Ginny? What the hell's going on?"

He was coming up to the table at last, bursting forth through a throng of first years. Her read headed brother gaped but stared on, intrigued yet silenced, although the tips of his ears were already brightening.

She held her gaze.

"What are you - " she began, but she never finished.

His pace had become a jog as he came closer, reaching for her with hands that had fisted and curled finally opening, relieved, cupping her face somewhat gently as he kissed her, breathing in deep of a scent he wasn't entirely sure he would smell again.

The entire hall was still, watching and wondering, afraid to look at someone else for fear they had the answer.

His lips, soft and pale, were a dream on her mouth. It seemed as if she was so shocked, just then; quite suddenly, her mouth fell open in a quiet gasp as she grabbed his face. Eagerly, she began to kiss back, sharing his hunger as her breath came in short bursts.

Harry stumbled backwards, but nobody was watching him; they were all too focused on the unfolding scene before them. It seemed so wrong that they were together, so intimate in this way - yet everyone tilted their heads and smiled dreamily, knowing just how right it should've been.

His hands were trembling as he kissed all over her face, shaking as they grabbed her shoulders, skimmed her arms.

"I want you to eat again," he whispered, nuzzling her neck. "I want you to gain weight and I want you to be happy."

She almost laughed, the bubble cracking in her throat at her tears.

"Is that what you haven't slept? Because you're worried about my eating habits?"

"I loved those curves, and you threw them all away," he answered gruffly, pulling her closer to him. She clung to his shoulders, body quaking.

"I didn't see the need in keeping them anymore."

She pulled back and brushed the circles beneath his eyes with gentle fingertips, running them through his mussed hair.

"I want you to keep them. I don't care if you turn out like your mother. You'll be beautiful, still beautiful, after years of me and babies - " he babbled, and she laughed out loud, a glorious ringing in his ears, as she threw her head back.

Oh, that glorious laugh.

"I want you to know that you're stupid, you're so very stupid. I guess that's why I'm still standing here - because I'm so much smarter, so much more sane, hmm?"

He ran his fingers through her glorious tresses, reveling in the knowledge that from now on, they were his to touch.

"And I want you to know that no matter what I said, Ginny - _and I will deny ever saying this _- there's always been something here," he whispered, motioning shyly between them.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder, her body shaking with mirthful sobs that made his dormant heart swell.

"So it has. Some of us were just too dense to recognize it for what it was."

And so, it was deep in the night that he became whole again, skimming his fingers along skin that was too pale and too perfect, but just right, there close to him. It was those hours that he returned to himself, and she returned to him.

It was in those early rays of morning sunshine that he learned to love her. Those early, eerie hours when the sun came up - that was when he realized, she had made him mindless from the start.

_fin_

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**Ah, so.**

**Be kind. **


End file.
